3.31.2005

Illustration Friday: Crowded

The theme is "crowded" for this week's Illustration Friday. This was probably the quickest I've ever done one. I had this idea of heads all squished together, did a quick search through other IF entries (I have this thing where if I find out if someone else did a similar concept or idea, I'll scrap it immediately and try to come up with something else), sketched it quickly on a piece of paper, scanned it, and painted it in Photoshop -- all within about 30 to 40 minutes. I'm having fun with this pastel brush they've got in Photoshop. I usually tweak some of the qualities to the brush, but I think it does a pretty good job getting that pastel look -- complete without all the chalk getting all over your hands and clothes. Can't beat that.

I love this picture! It really has the feel of being "crowded." This looks like the MARTA train I was on yesterday - and it's how I felt! Squozed in. No room to breath. Ugh. I'm going to put this picture right next to Ava's Easter Bunny picture on the fridge. How proud am I?

I have the exact same "thing" about I-Fri. entries. I scrapped two ideas before I finally settled on the one I currently have posted. I love how your colors bleed into the different faces, as well as the expressions. :)

Thank you all for your kind comments. I really appreciate them. drybrush, that's true, it does sorta look like stained glass, doesn't it? In fact, I was a big fan of that look back in college, and loved Henri Rouault's work, which resembled stained glass at times. Thank you all for visiting!

That looks great, Ward! I understand what you're saying about making sure that what you come up with for IF is original. Me, I like to come up with my own take, and then see what everyone else came up with. If there's something similar, I chalk it up to great minds thinking alike.

I was writing a post on the theme 'crowded' triggered by Weekend Wordsmith and did an image search for crowded in google and your picture came up on the first results page. I liked it so much that I had to use it for my post. Hope you don't mind. People thought I had painted it and I had to rectify their assumptions. Hope you get some traffic through my post to make up for that.